Good luck with your plane 
I would like to thank everyone for their replies! No one has successfully talked me out of going for a new DA42-VI, so that is the plan.
Jetfuel, FADEC, and the new safety systems are big plusses for me. And I think I should get a few hundred hours of experience here before thinking about the turboprop world, especially if we are talking about «interesting» avionics. I will be making another thread about configuring and ordering it before talking further with the sales rep. Thank you everyone who replied!
Actually there’s an alpine airline that is using a p68 for touristic flight.
http://alpine-airlines.com/vulcanair-p68/
This version looks as ugly as the standard ones, but the glass front entire canopy is great to fly I believe, specially for pilots.
Emir wrote:
I can’t imagine Tecnam to be touring aircraft for crossing the Alps or flying in Scandinavian weather.
No?
Ok, a slightly bigger and non-existing electric version But a Tecnam nonetheless.
What about a T182T with TKS? Norway has kortbanenettet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOLports_in_Norway
I would also expect quite a lot of wind and generally similar conditions to the Alaskan pilots I’ve seen on Discovery flying C206
Yup, or at least not the 2006 twin. The 2012 twin is Fiki – but also way bigger and 2x the price of a Jetprop. It does however come with FADEC Lycomings, so the upside you’re down to four engine levers instead of six, the downside you still need proper Avgas.
I can’t imagine Tecnam to be touring aircraft for crossing the Alps or flying in Scandinavian weather.
The Tecnam Twin has no FIKI option and afaik no de icing at all. This makes it very limited for IFR anywhere north of the Alps.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. For the payload you require and preferring a new airplane, I’d suggest a look at a Tecnam P2006T twin. Two Rotax engines that can run on – and actually prefer – Mogas, modern cockpit w Garmin G950 and due to high wing good for sightseeing. Somewhat underpowered, but that’s prob90 not a huge issue for what you intend to do. Don’t know about heating, that’s rarely an issue here is SoCal!
Is there any real issue operating a twin piston down to Southern Europe at FL100? Or is it best to stay around Scandinavia? I know at some point it turns into a long trip, but it seems like a good learning experience for me to build up hours.
The avgas situation is more difficult in the more southern parts of Europe but whether this matters depends hugely on what sort of flying you want to do. If you travel to nice destinations then you can do it ok, albeit with more planning. Actually in say Greece the airport timetables are more of a challenge than getting avgas
Burning Jet-A1 is a big advantage down there, however, because you can refuel at all sorts of “airline” airports.
But if you just want to fly around aimlessly like so many do then certainly that is easier in N Europe.
Crossing the Alps IFR needs FL140 except the far eastern portion which can be done at FL120. You need oxygen but portable kits are no problem.
I have a load of trip reports here and some articles on oxygen kits. And I am doing this with a TB20 which has similar performance to a DA42 (lower climb rate at altitude due to no turbo) and is a bit slower than an SR22 but has quite a bit a longer range.
Remember that in Europe, due to the alternate situation being generally not great, a plane with say an 800nm range is good for only about 500nm, broadly speaking. The TB20 will do 1300nm+ but I would never plan a trip beyond about 950nm.
